A new study predicts that Apple will become the leading global PC provider by the second half of 2012.

Canalys, an independent analyst house that offers smart market insights to IT, expects Apple to surpass Hewlett-Packard to become the top global PC vendor before the second half of 2012 with help from the iPad 3.

"Apple has seen its PC market share expand from 9 percent to 15 percent in just four quarters, though iPad shipments in its core market -- the United States -- are likely to come under pressure in Q4 due to the launch of the Fire and Nook at extremely competitive price points," said Tim Coulling, Canalys analyst. "HP and Apple will fight for top position in Q4, but Apple may have to wait for the release of iPad 3 before it passes HP."

Apple iPad 2

According to Canalys' predictions, Apple has already made its way into the No. 2 spot in the worldwide PC market in Q3 2011 largely due to the success of the iPad. Canalys expects full-year 2011 global PC shipments to hit 415 million mainly due to heightened iPad sales.

In addition, iPad shipments are expected to hit 59 million units by the end of 2011 with Q4 accounting for 22 million alone.

Canalys predicts that North America PC shipments will reach 103 million for 2011 entirely, with 32 million units accounting for Q4 alone. The popularity of pads has increased 2011 volumes, growing 18 percent year-on-year. The EMEA PC market, however, will contract 6 percent at an annual rate (excluding pads).

Apple MacBook Air

The study also noted that netbooks have helped with 2011 PC growth, with shipments expected to reach 211 million with a 10 percent year-on-year increase. Ultrabooks, on the other hand, need a significant price drop in order to increase adoption.

Canalys says Apple's domination is due to competitor's inability to "produce comparable devices at attractive prices."

Your assessment of Apple's size is based on a bloated market cap. Apple is riding high but will not forever. Most highly successful tech companies start with something very new and innovative and then after some number of years slip into entrenchment.

Apple may very well replace MS in some measure but then they just may become entrenched as well. Apple was once circling the bowl; what's to prevent that from happening again?

It's not quite that simple. Apple's market cap matches their P/E ratio, buoyed by their large (enormous by industry standards) profit margins on their products. Normally in those situations, the market responds by encouraging competitors to offer similar products with a smaller profit margin. High profit margins are unhealthy for the economy overall - they only crop up when there's a big market inefficiency. An extremely efficient economy will have razor thin margins.

Apple has been trying to stave this off with patent lawsuits. Unfortunately, patents (and copyrights) fall outside of the scope of the market. They're designed to thwart market forces ostensibly to provide a greater good (future innovation). Since it's something that's outside the market's control, it's difficult to predict what exactly will happen. The ITC has a history of ruling against non-U.S. companies regardless of the issue at hand (e.g. they ruled against Research in Motion, a Canadian company, based on patents which the USPTO eventually overturned). And it looks like they just ruled against HTC (a Taiwanese company) in their case against Apple.

So yeah if this were totally up to the market, you'd be correct and Apple's market cap whittled down. But with the unpredictability of the distortion to the market by IP law, it's impossible to say how long Apple's ride will last.

Alternatively one could point to the fact that Apple has the best organised supply chain in the business, and a SKU inventory that is utterly minimal (which minimises the number of components in the supply chain) and minute compared to it's competitors and a very deep planned future product strategy which allows Apple to use it's cash mountain to buy up components before it's competitors know what is happening.

When Jobs built Apple V2 he took everything he had learned in three decades at the heart of the tech business and crafted a business machine that is awesome in it's ability to innovate, disrupt, take profits and out manoeuvre it's competitors. The legal stuff is a side show.

Taking the comparison I made earlier about Apple being the combined Microsoft and Intel of the new devices age then Apple is only at the equivalent point that Wintel was in around 1990, Apple is only just taking off.